Synopsis
The author describes her youth in Brooklyn, her education at the University of Cologne on the eve of Hitler's reign of terror, and her trips to the Soviet Union during Stalin's dictatorship
Reviews
Gruber ( Israel Today ), born in 1911, is not a household name despite her having written 13 books and serving as a foreign correspondent during the 1930s in countless dangerous locales. This memoir is beautifully crafted, covering her inner life sensitively as well as educating readers about what it was like to grow up Jewish in a Brooklyn "shtetl" in the early part of the century; to enter New York University as a 15-year-old freshman; to hitchhike to the University of Wisconsin to begin a master's degree in German; to study in Germany at the time of Hitler's ascension; and to explore Europe and the Soviet Arctic as a New York Herald Tribune journalist. Gruber changes some names for the sake of privacy, devaluing the book somewhat as a historical document. That reservation aside, this volume recalling her first 25 years is one of the most evocative journalistic autobiographies to appear. Readers will hope to see the rest of her story published. Author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Full of record accomplishments--youngest Ph.D. in Germany, first American correspondent to travel to the Soviet Arctic--this memoir of her 1920's and 30's by veteran journalist Gruber (Rescue, 1987, etc.) is high on action but low on analysis. The daughter of Jewish immigrants, Gruber was born and raised in Brooklyn, where her precocious academic abilities were soon recognized. Encouraged by mentors, she excelled, first in high school, then in college, majoring in English and German. Awarded scholarships, she went on to graduate school in Wisconsin and at the Univ. of Cologne. There, in 1932, where she became at 20 the youngest Ph.D. in Germany, she also witnessed the growing power of Hitler and the spread of anti-Semitism. Intent on being a writer, Gruber returned to New York, but because of the Depression, jobs were scarce, and she began writing free-lance pieces for the New York Herald Tribune. A travel fellowship enabled her to return to Europe in 1935 as a correspondent for the Tribune to study women under democracy, Fascism, and Communism, which she did by traveling in Germany, where old friends had either fled or joined the Nazis; in England, where she had a disappointing interview with Virginia Woolf; and in the Soviet Union, where she traveled in what we now know as the Gulag, first by train, then by plane, and finally by ship across the Arctic Ocean. A woman to admire, with a remarkable story that's undercut by lackluster prose and a tendency to deal superficially with the darker side of times past. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Now close to 80, Gruber reminisces about the exciting experiences of her young adult years. Raised in the Jewish shtetl atmosphere of Brooklyn in the years around World War I, she sought to escape its intellectually stifling environment. Her academic brilliance gained her admission to Mt. Holyoke, University of Wisconsin, and subsequent funding for doctoral studies in Germany in 1931. She writes poignantly of falling in love with a German student while being acutely conscious of the pervasive anti-Semitism and the escalating acts of violence against Jews. In 1935, still only 24, she was the first American to secure authorization to travel in Siberia, and she reported her observations for the Herald Tribune. Her success in pursuing career objectives was quite unusual for that time. Unfortunately, her writing does not convey the drama and tension of bearing witness to truly world shaking events.
- Carol R. Glatt, VA Medical Ctr . , Philadelphia
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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